Latvian hacker Peteris Sahurovs, also known as Sagade, was extradited to the United States and on Monday, June 12, brought before the court of Minneapolis. Sakhurovs is accused of implementing a fraudulent scheme that brought him and his accomplices more than $ 2 million.

According to the FBI, in 2010 Sahurovs, together with Marina Masloboeva (also known as Aminasah), on behalf of a fictional marketing company, RevolTech, acquired a place on various sites allegedly for advertising the Best Western. Initially, scammers did host legitimate advertising, but later replaced it with malicious.

Malicious ads redirected users to servers in the Netherlands and Latvia, where malicious software was downloaded to their servers. The malware slowed down or completely blocked the work of computers and displayed notifications that the system was infected with a malicious program and to remove it the user must purchase an antivirus product Antivirus Soft.

If the victim agreed to buy an "antivirus", she was redirected to the site avgroupwebsite. Com, where she had to pay $ 49.95. After installing Antivirus Soft, the computer again worked as usual.

Law enforcers began the investigation after the attackers placed malicious ads on the website of the Minneapolis Star Tribune newsletter. Sahurovs was arrested in Latvia in 2011, but fled the country when he was released in anticipation of extradition proceedings in the United States. In November 2016, Sagade was again arrested, this time in Poland.